Once The Head of Punjab Police, Today Supercop Sumedh Saini Is Running To Evade Arrest

Shikha Chaurasia

Pune, September 12, 2020: Supercop Sumedh Singh Saini, who was the head of the Punjab Police and used to sweat off big criminals with his name, is running away from the police today. He is underground to escape arrest in Chandigarh’s Balwant Singh Multani kidnapping and murder case and the police are searching for him. 

He has moved the Supreme Court after the Punjab and Haryana High Court rejected his anticipatory bail application. The petition has been returned in the Supreme Court saying that there are not enough papers with the application. Now his lawyers are ready to file a fresh petition.

At one time, Saini was such a big name that the evil of a vicious criminal trembled as soon as he heard his name. He did not spare even his senior, Simranjit Singh Mann, in the matter of separatist movement. Among the faces who fought in the era of terrorism, he was the biggest name after KPS Gill. Perhaps this was the reason KPS Gill himself came to the police headquarters to congratulate him when he became the DGP of Punjab.

Saini has also been the target of politicians due to many cases and his style. When Captain Amarinder Singh was in the government in 2002, he was appointed as Inspector General (IG) of Intelligence. He arrested Ravi Sidhu, chairman of the Punjab Public Service Commission, in a bribery case. It was believed that he was close to Captain Amarinder Singh, but Saini was soon removed and pushed to the margins.

In 2007, when the Badal government came, he was given the distinction of vigilance. In the famous ‘City Centre scam’ in Ludhiana, he filed a case against Amarinder Singh. In the second term, he grew closer to the Badals and in the second term, bypassing the seniority of other officers, Saini was appointed as the DGP despite all the opposition. Even the BJP, the Akali Dal’s alliance party, was not happy with this decision but Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal did not care.

A bad phase began for Saini when the Captain’s government was formed three years ago. In the case of Balwant Singh Multani, he was detained on the orders of Saini, who was the son of former IAS Darshan Singh Multani. The police detained him and later said that he fled. Multani’s family said that Balwant died due to police torture. In 2008, on the instructions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the Chandigarh CBI initiated an investigation and filed a case against Saini. The Supreme Court later dismissed the FIR on technical grounds.

Now the Punjab Police has again filed a case on the new facts. He is under threat of arrest after his bail was cancelled by the High Court. Special teams of Punjab Police have been raiding their various targets for the last three days. He has also knocked the doors of the Supreme Court for his bail. 

Not only this, he is also heavily surrounded in the Behbal Kalan Goli scandal after the incidents of disharmony in the time of Badal Sarkar. Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, the IG of the Special Investigation Team investigating the case, has given the same statement in the Faridkot court on Thursday.

Saini is still facing charges of kidnapping and killing a Ludhiana businessman family in 1994. Ninety-year-old Amar Kaur says that Saini allegedly took her son Vinod Kumar and son-in-law Ashok Kumar along with their driver Mukhtiar and killed them. 

CBI registered a case on this and proceeded with the case in the special court. Though Saini was never accused of corruption, this aspect of his personality has been buried in his manner of dealing with criminals.